Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control device, a print system, a print control method and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium for rasterizing the data of each page of a print job.
Description of Related Art
A recent image forming apparatus (print apparatus) forms an image and further has various types of post-processing functions. In particular, in the production print field, as shown in FIG. 19, the bookbinding output for carrying out various types of bookbinding processes, such as a saddle stitching, a side stitching (case binding), a perfect binding (case binding), a ring binding and the like, can be executed.
In the bookbinding output, images are printed on recording sheets in the order which is suitable for each binding format, and the corresponding bookbinding process is carried out for the printed sheets. Therefore, there are some cases in which a final page of a print job is printed on the first recording sheet to be used in the printing depending on the binding format.
As shown in FIG. 20, it is assumed that in the original document, the first to the Nth pages are arranged in order. The saddle stitching is a binding format in which after the 2-fold sheets are overlapped in the state in which each sheet is open, the sheets are stapled at the fold portion. Therefore, in case that the original document shown in FIG. 20 is printed in the saddle stitching, as shown in FIG. 21, it is necessary to print four pages which are the first page, the Nth page, the second page and the (N−1)th page on the both sides of the first recording sheet.
The side stitching is a binding format in which after the 2-fold sheets are overlapped in the state in which each sheet is folded and are bound near the fold by using a thread or a wire, the bound sheets are cased with one sheet which functions as the front cover and the back cover. The perfect binding is a binding format in which after the 2-fold sheets are overlapped in the state in which each sheet is folded and are bound by a bonding agent without using a thread or a wire, the bound sheets are cased with one sheet which functions as the front cover and the back cover. Therefore, in each of the above binding formats, as shown in FIG. 21, it is necessary to print four pages which are the sixth page, the third page, the fourth page and the fifth page on the both sides of the first recording sheet.
The ring binding is a binding format in which the sheets are overlapped and punched so as to form many holes along one end portion of the sheets, and the rings are fitted to the holes. In case that the ring binding is carried out by using a post-processing device of an image forming apparatus, as shown in FIGS. 22A to 22D, generally, after each tooth 61 of the comb-shaped resin piece 60 shown in FIG. 22A is inserted into the hole formed on the end portion of the sheets (See FIG. 22B), each tooth 61 is rounded in a ring form and the edge of the tooth 61 is bound to the base part 62 of the comb-shaped resin piece 60 by the heat fusion bonding (See FIG. 22C). Then, in order to improve the appearance by hiding the base part 62, the first recording sheet is used as the final page (back cover) by rotating along the rings by 360 degrees as shown in FIG. 22D. Therefore, in case the binding format is the ring binding, as shown in FIG. 21, the (N−1)th page and the Nth page are printed on the both sides of the first recording sheet.
Conventionally, in the binding, as shown in FIG. 23, before a job is generated, a user performs the pagination in which pages of the original document, which are arranged in the order from the front page to the final page, are rearranged according to the binding format (in FIG. 23, the case of the saddle stitching is shown). Then, a job data in which the pages are rearranged in order according to the layout of the above pagination is generated and is transmitted to an image forming apparatus. Further, in case that the layout of the pagination is changed after the job is generated, it is necessary to generate a job data again by performing the pagination according to the changed layout.
In recent years, as shown in FIG. 24, a job data in which the pages are arranged in the page order which is the same as that of the original document is transmitted to an image forming apparatus. Then, the image forming apparatus performs the pagination according to the designated binding format (in FIG. 24, the case of the saddle stitching is shown). Thereby, a user can obtain the booklet having the intended binding format by only designating the binding format without performing the pagination before a job is transmitted. Further, even if the contents of the pagination are changed after the job data is generated, it is possible to easily obtain the booklet having the intended binding format by only changing the designation of the binding format for the image forming apparatus.
In the bookbinding output, when the sheet which is used as the front cover and on which the image has been printed is previously prepared and is set to the predetermined tray, an image forming apparatus generally performs the process for binding the sheets on which the images are formed in accordance with the job with the above front cover, the process for inserting the blank page so as to match with the necessary pages in the binding format (for example, in case of the saddle stitching, the total number of the pages is necessarily a factor of 4.).
However, in a recent print processing, the contents of each page are described in the page description language (PDL), and an image forming apparatus receives the job in which each page is described in the PDL. Then, the image forming apparatus prints an image in accordance with the image data obtained by rasterizing the data of the received job (RIP: Raster Image Processor). In general, in the order of the reception of the data, that is, in the order from the front page, the data of each page is rasterized. However, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-161096, it is disclosed that the job is divided into pages, and the data is rasterized from an optional page.
As compared with the reception of the job data, it takes long time to carryout the rasterizing process. Therefore, when the image forming apparatus rasterizes the data of each page, in case that the rasterizing process is carried out in parallel with the reception of the data, it is possible to shorten the necessary time which elapses since the start of the reception of the data till the finish of the rasterizing process, as compared with the case in which after the data of the all of the pages are received, the rasterizing process is started.
However, in case that the job data is received in the page order of the original image and the image forming apparatus performs the pagination to execute the bookbinding output, when the data of each page is rasterized in the order of the reception of the data (in the order from the front page), there are some cases in which the final page or the like is printed on the first recording sheet to be used in the printing depending on the binding format. Therefore, in this case, the printing is started after the data of the final page or the like is rasterized. Even if the rasterizing process is carried out in parallel with the reception of the data, the start of the printing cannot be accelerated. As a result, the standby time caused until the finish of the printing becomes longer.
On the other hand, it is considered that the data is rasterized not in the order of the reception of the data, but in the page order corresponding to the binding format by using the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-161096, in which the data is rasterized in the intended page order. However, in this method, for example, in case of the saddle stitching, because the data of the final page is rasterized immediately after the first page, when the job data of the final page is not received at the timing at which the rasterizing process for the data of the first page is finished, the waiting time for the reception of the job data of the final page is caused. As a result, the efficiency of the printing is deteriorated.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-212636, it is disclosed that in case that data is rasterized in the order from the front page, when the binding format is the ring binding and the final page is a blank page, the printing is started without waiting for the finish of the rasterizing process for the data of the final page. However, this technology can be applied only to the case in which the binding format is the ring binding and the final page is a blank page. Therefore, in case that the final page is not a blank page, the print cannot be started unless the rasterizing process for the data of the final page is finished.